How to cope with anxiety, fatigue, and brain injury
I like to think of myself as a tough, resilient person who can work through any sort of obstacle. My experience with post-concussion syndrome last year shook me to my core.
As I described in my last post, I had very limited cognitive, emotional, physical, and social abilities during my recovery. As a result, many of my go-to coping mechanisms, like quality time with close friends and practicing yoga, simply weren’t an option. This experience was a challenge of a new kind. Being in such an extreme situation pushed me to grow in new ways.
Because I had no control
Due to my brain injury, I lost the ability to regulate my emotions, process information correctly, and make sound decisions. I spent weeks angry and frustrated that I couldn’t work, drive, exercise, cook, watch TV, or read. I wanted my life to be back to normal, but any time I didn’t respect my limits, I suffered a big setback in my recovery.
The turning point occurred when I finally stopped fighting the situation. Once I accepted that I had no control over my limitations, I was able to shift my focus from what I could not do to what I could. I learned that there’s strength in surrender.
This new mindset helped me reframe my leave of absence from work. I stopped dwelling on how lonely, bored, and down I was and realized my time off was a gift that most 30-something-year-olds don’t get. What I dubbed my “Surprise Sabbatical” became a chance to reflect on my life and what I wanted to change both during and after my recovery.
Because I had severe anxiety
The Calm app helped me learn how to meditate and work through the distressing thoughts and emotions triggered by my head injury. Each 10-minute practice gave me new ways to deal with the nonstop mental chatter and eased my anxiety and fatigue.
I wasn’t prepared for the barrage of anxiety, fear, circular thinking, and mood swings that followed the concussion. I had to learn new coping skills to navigate the emotional turbulence.
The single most valuable tool was meditation. The Calm app became my lifeline for getting from moment to moment during the darkest times of my recovery. I still try to practice daily, and meditation continues to significantly improve the quality of my life.
While I’ve never been a big fan of journaling, I discovered three types that helped me:
Anxiety journal. When I had a particularly hard time with repetitive thinking, I started recording the irrational thought or scenario in a journal. I found that giving it a dedicated place to exist outside my head was sometimes enough for my brain to release it.
Gratitude journal. Writing down what was going well, what abilities I did have, and what I was grateful for helped counter the negative thoughts swirling around my mind.
Bullet journal. Because every brain and injury are different, it was impossible to predict the length of my recovery. The uncertainty was difficult—each setback felt devastating. So I started tracking my concussion symptoms and what I could do to heal in a simple daily journal. It was an easy way to keep sight of the overall trend toward improvement. The journal also enabled me to provide more accurate updates to my neurologist since I was so forgetful.
This excerpt from my bullet journal provides a glimpse of the ups and downs of my concussion recovery. While bullet journals come in many forms, I created this simple one in Excel to track the severity and frequency of my symptoms, as well as what I was doing to heal and resume normal activities. Visualizing the change over weeks and months helped me see that I was in fact improving despite the bad days and setbacks.
Because I had to limit my screen time
During my leave of absence from work, I had a lot of free time. Unfortunately, the eye movement associated with common pastimes—like watching TV, using a computer or phone, or even reading—triggered terrible nausea. (Not to mention, the light from a screen, even on the dimmest setting, felt like a pickaxe piercing my eyeballs.) Because I had limited use of my eyes, I turned to another sense, my hearing.
Podcasts were a great source of entertainment. I listened to 100+ episodes of Young House Love’s podcast. Sherry and John Petersik’s upbeat, lighthearted podcast about their home improvement adventures was exactly what I needed to brighten my mood. Not only did they crack me up, I learned useful tips about design, which gave me something other than my concussion symptoms to talk about with others.
Because I couldn’t do everything myself
I learned to prioritize. Given my limited energy, I had to be incredibly selective about what I chose to do. I cut back to the bare minimum: taking care of my pups and getting a couple meals in a day. From there, I could do one or two things between resting periods.
It made me realize how much unnecessary stress I place on myself and how much mental energy I waste. Do I really need to adhere to a compulsive weekly cleaning schedule? No. Do I need to spend hours determining the most efficient sequence to run weekend errands? Certainly not. As I slowly gained more energy, I got to intentionally re-introduce activities into my life.
I also learned it’s okay to accept help. I’m pretty independent by nature, and asking for help has never been inside my comfort zone. I was afraid that accepting help would somehow indicate I was weak or incapable. But because there was so much I literally could not do, I didn’t have a choice. It was humbling to need—and receive—a ton of support and assistance. And ultimately I learned that there’s nothing wrong with needing help.
I grew in new, unexpected ways
These realizations and coping strategies helped me heal and smoothed the transition back to my normal life. It’s been 16 months since my fall, and although I’ve regained my cognitive abilities, I continue to use these tools on a regular basis to navigate the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that inevitably arise in everyday life. I’m grateful that something positive has come from such a trying, disorienting experience.
I now have a newfound appreciation not only for my health, but for the many people in my life who supported me during my recovery. While dozens of people came through for me, there’s one person in particular I’d like to thank. Stay tuned for my next post!